I Am Ophelia
by signelchan
Summary: Once upon a time there was a so-called "fictional" land of Ylisse that a book spoke of, that poor Ophelia was forbidden to speak of for some reason unknown to her. The want to travel to, and learn about, this place began to consume the girl, until someone had to step in and say something about it to her. Was that person a parent? Of course it wasn't.


**warning: character death mention**

Hiding out under the blankets to read was something that Ophelia only did whenever she was somewhere she didn't feel comfortable reading out in the open, and she only did it in the early hours before her parents were awake. On this particular day, she'd woken up with the sun and had kept herself hidden under the blankets with her book until the sun was shining in through the window of the inn they were currently staying at, not wanting to get up until it felt like an acceptable time to be awake. The loud footsteps that came towards her bed, whoever was walking unaware she was already awake, would have been enough to raise the dead from their slumber, only getting louder as the person stumbled and almost fell to the wooden floor.

"That could have been bad," the person softly said, her voice not carrying far not because she was trying to be quiet but rather because she tended to be soft-spoken when not being addressed. "I would have hated to wake her up on accident…"

"I'm already awake, Mother!" Ophelia announced, throwing her blanket hiding spot away and sending her mother nearly falling to the floor once more. She took a second to make sure that she hadn't just sent her clumsy mother stumbling to the floor before laughing as she closed her book and set it on her pillow, kicking her legs over the side of the bed to get up for the day. "I woke with the sun and spent the time reading, because I didn't want to bother you or Father. We had quite a journey to get here yesterday and I figured you would both be very thankful for some rest."

"We would have been had we been allowed to rest!" Stifling a laugh with the back of her hand, Felicia motioned for her daughter to quickly follow her, something that Ophelia was fine with doing as she was because she'd gotten dressed when she'd taken her book from her bag of belongings. "You see, we chose this place for our next stop because your father heard word that some dear friends of his would be here for a few days, and true to that word we were woken up this morning to them entering our room without permission."

"How would they manage to do that?" Ophelia kept in time with her mother's pace as they headed down from the loft she'd stayed in overnight, entering the lower room her parents had used before leaving to go down to the bottom floor of the inn. "I would have figured I would have heard something…"

"They arrived before dawn, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to have still been fast asleep through everything. Your father managed to stay asleep until I screamed and tried to leap into his arms…which didn't quite work because we were both laying down, heh." Felicia straightened the edge of the skirt she was wearing as they started down the final flight of stairs before joining everyone. "It'll be something to laugh about in the future, but for now we're running on very little sleep with a lot of talking to have happen!"

"Don't worry, Mother, I can do all the talking if you ever want to step back upstairs for a quick nap. Tell Father the same thing, I can definitely talk the ears off of his friends!" Her eyes were shining at the possibility of being able to weave stories for her father's friends, and if it weren't for the fact that they were actively walking down a rickety staircase, Ophelia would have most likely jumped for joy. But she didn't want to risk throwing herself or her mother down the stairs, so she contained her excitement in a little shake of her hands. "Which ones are here? Is it all of them? Some of them? Who, Mother, who?"

"Patience, Ophelia, you'll see who it is soon enough!" When they reached the bottom of the staircase, before they entered the dining area of the inn, Felicia turned her daughter so that they were standing face-to-face, the young teenager looking up at her mother with a large grin. "Now please try to keep your energy level down a little bit when we enter, they've had to do a lot of traveling to get here and I'm sure if you start rambling faster than the speed of light they'll be unable to follow you. Can you do that for me, sweetie?"

Ophelia nodded, making her mother smile before she leaned in to kiss her forehead. Once the kind gesture was done, they were entering the room, the girl's eyes glancing around everywhere to take in who all was there. "Oh goodness, there's a lot more friends here than I thought possible! Hello everyone!"

Her dainty wave as she gave her greeting earned her several waves back, but one person chose to stand up rather than waving at all. "Ophelia! You've grown so much since the last time I saw you!" a girl not much older than her called out, her brown hair being flipped off of her shoulder as she pushed her chair away to meet with her friend near the room's entrance. "You've got to stop doing that, you're going to get to be too old and yucky before we get a chance to break away from all this!"

"W-what? Break away? Soleil, don't be silly!" Happy to see her friend but taken aback at what she had just heard her say, Ophelia threw herself into Soleil's opened arms, the two girls hugging for a few moments before separating so that they could take their seats, right next to each other's on one side of the table. "I happen to like this journeying thing, it's amazing for learning about other cultures!"

"You only like it because you're a nerd about things like that," Soleil reminded her, flicking the gem that Ophelia wore in the center of her forehead as she spoke. "What's up with this thing? Lover repellent or something?"

Thinking about some witty comeback she could make to her friend, Ophelia shook her head and shifted her eyes upward, unable to see the bauble in particular but making a valiant effort to do so. "Does something about my appearance always have to turn into something related to romance? It's a gem that we picked up in our travels, apparently the mages in their region all wear them and as magic courses through my blood I figured it would make sense for me to begin wearing one."

"That's cute, I think it suits you." Flicking at it again, Soleil pulled her hand back to adjust the worn headband on her head, holding the majority of her hair back from her face. "Just like my headband here suits me. Pretty girls like us always need to accessorize to make a statement, it'll attract mates better that way."

"And there's my girl, always talking about what she can do to find a significant other, despite being far too young to even be on the market." Holding out his hand as if he was motioning towards his daughter, Soleil's father seemed to be amused at what he'd overheard of their conversation. "I know that, when the time comes for her to start pursuing romantic leads, she'll be quick to find someone who'll suit her fancy."

"Aw, thanks Dad," she said, beaming at him due to the praise, but the moment he went back to the conversation with the other adults present, she was rolling her eyes and getting straight to what she'd been talking about. "I've had so many girls turn to look at me while I'm walking around towns with my parents, but it's really hard to interact with them when I'm being watched! Also doesn't help that any time a cute girl talks to me, my tongue goes all twisty and I'm left staring blankly at them until they leave."

"What, so I'm not a cute girl?" Ophelia feigned being insulted at the suggestion, sending Soleil's cheeks aflame as she tried explaining what she meant, but she was quickly hushed. "No, I know what you're referring to. We're friends, so you can talk to me with ease, right?"

"Naturally, why else would I be here if that wasn't the case?" Looking back at the conversation happening everywhere else around the table, Soleil realized her mistake on what she'd said. "I…mean, aside from being brought here by my parents. I would have so jumped out of this place and gone exploring town if I didn't have a friend in here."

The way Soleil had looked at the adults had drawn their attention to her, and there was something about what she had just said that was making a couple of them smirk as they tried holding back laughter. "Don't think most of us would be here if we didn't have friends around," the redhead directly across the table from Soleil said, while the woman with light blue hair next to her gave a small nod of agreement. "Think we'd have chosen to go elsewhere with our time if we didn't have friends to meet with."

"Isn't this meeting really to discuss what, exactly, you're going to do with your time after this?" Turning his attention from the two younger girls to the two women, Ophelia's father cracked a smile at them that had them both giving him no-nonsense looks in return. "I mean, you said it yourselves when you came in this morning that going _back_ can't happen…"

"That's not what we said and you know it, Odin. We said that we can't return to Nohr under any circumstances whatsoever, and I'm pretty sure that we'd be killed on sight if we tried getting into Hoshido, so it's really a game of 'do we wander around forever, or do we go home' that we're left playing." The redhead ran her fingers through one of her absurdly long pigtails before grabbing it halfway down and snapping it at Odin, who recoiled at it with a forced laugh. "And we're not sure what we're doing about that, it's all up to what you think we should do."

"I firmly believe that returning home should happen when the time is right, not simply at the first instance we have to consider it. Who knows if we can ever come back around here if we return there, and if we don't make an effort to return at once it's quite possible that we'd be separated for eternity." Glancing at where his daughter sat, Soleil's father shook his head at the redhead, who was still playing with her pigtail, before he added, "Can we really do that to the families we sit in this very room with?"

"You're the ones with the family issues to work out. Beruka and I, the only people we have to worry about are each other, after what happened to get us barred from returning to Nohr. You two, you're the ones with close kids to keep in mind." She was gesturing towards the girls across the table from her, Ophelia feeling slightly uncomfortable at how she was being referred to. She must have made a face that expressed that discomfort, as the woman remarked, "See, look at that, little Ophelia's getting confused at what we're even talking about right now. How can we have this conversation with these kids here?"

"Selena, you're starting to sound rather rude, maybe you should rethink how you're saying things before you actually say them." Standing up from his chair, Odin cast his friend a disapproving look before he walked around to where Ophelia was sitting, wrapping his arms around her in a quick hug while he got his face closer to her ear so he could whisper a message to her: "Don't mind what she's talking about, she's being dramatic as always, there's nothing going on that you need to concern yourself with right now."

"I don't know if I believe you, Father," she replied, snuggling herself into her dad's arms while he still held onto her. "After all, if there wasn't anything going on, I'm sure we'd have moved onto talk of actually doing something right now."

"Like exploring!" Soleil chimed in, her voice taking on a sing-song tone as she jumped from her chair and pointed towards the door. "Why should we bother staying in here with you adults having a big ol' important talk when there's a whole town out there to look at?"

She thought she was being amusing, and Ophelia laughed at what she'd done, but none of the adults present thought it was funny at all. "Sit back down, Soleil, and think about how being a disruption isn't befitting a girl like you," Selena told her from across the table, giving the girl's father an innocent look when he turned to glare at her. "Hey, don't shoot those daggers at me, Laslow. I'm just doing everyone a favor by telling her to knock it off."

As Soleil took to her seat once more, her mother getting up from her chair to come comfort her with kind words and (what smelled like) a little snack brought in from somewhere foreign, Laslow rolled his eyes before slamming his hands down on the table's edge. He pushed his own chair back, sending it up on two legs for a moment before he let it crash back down. "What I've just done there, that's a disruption. Soleil raising a valid point that there's daylight to chase outside? That's her trying to be helpful."

"I don't think I like the tone you're taking with my girlfriend," the normally silent Beruka said after looking at how Selena's face had contorted into an expression of anger at what Laslow had said. "I think I'd prefer you take that back, before we get ourselves banished from this place as well."

"C-can we get through one of these gatherings without someone threatening to murder someone?" Felicia asked as she tried to stop any words from being acted on, holding her arm out in front of the two ladies to one side, while holding her hand up to stop Laslow across from her. "I would really rather us not lose someone, or all be banned, or anything like that! Can't we all just get along, this once?"

Her attempt at dispelling the negativity fell on deaf ears, as soon the room became filled with a shouting match between three parties, but before any weapons could be drawn people were starting to leave the scene. The first person to bolt from the room was Ophelia, with her father right in line behind her, and not long after them came Soleil and her mother. They hadn't discussed where they were going, or who they were going with, but one thing was for certain: being anywhere else in that inn, or in that town, was better than being witness to a fight. Even if the fight never amounted to more than some bruised egos and a lingering threat of further action being taken if something erupted like that again.

The day was spent bumping into some of the others from that meeting off and on, as everyone looked around at what the small town had to offer. There wasn't much to make note of, as it was just a small town some ways inland from the nearest coast, yet the smell of salty ocean air seemed to hang around the streets and alleyways everyone was walking through. Ophelia took great interest in looking through every shop she could find, having to pull herself away from any collection of books she could find on their shelves because she knew that she had to travel light and that meant one book at a time, period. It was while she was in one such shop that she had someone quite literally run into her with their arms full with merchandise, and while she wasn't bothered by the accident, they insisted she take something in apology.

That was how she ended up with a small collection of fables and fairy tales from all over the world, each story prefaced with an explanation of where it came from. "Do you think we'll be able to travel to all the lands mentioned in this book?" she asked her father after they'd regrouped outside the shop, him having had gotten distracted by something outside at about the same time she'd been compelled to go in. "I'm sure we've visited some already, and this would make for excellent reason to continue traveling!"

"You weren't supposed to take anything from the shop, no matter how interesting you found it," Odin reminded her, but after she explained what had happened to put the book in her hands he was a bit more accepting. "Well, in that case, as long as you aren't going to push it off on someone else, it might be a fun guide to try following. What sorts of places do the stories in there come from?"

"Lots of ones we've been to before, I'm afraid." Ophelia had taken to leafing through the pages, stopping on each introduction to quickly read it. "There's several in a row from back in Nohr, and several more from Hoshido, but then there's…hm." She pursed her lips together as she mentally went over how to approach the name she'd come across, before giving it her best shot. "Uh, Ye-lis-see? Maybe?"

All of the color in Odin's face drained as he listened to his daughter stumble over the name, every time she tried saying it making him tense up a bit more. "That place isn't real," he told her after collecting himself from what he'd heard. "It's a fictional land used to make stories that are completely untrue sound like they happened in a real place. We cannot go there, because it doesn't exist."

"Aw, but this story's about a big dragon and the brave souls who defeated it!" Enthralled with what her book said, Ophelia didn't see the expression of surprise on her father's face, but she certainly noticed when he grabbed her by the arm and started heading her back towards the inn. "Father! What are you doing, I was _reading_! You spend so much time telling me to read, then when I'm reading you interrupt me!"

"You're getting your head wrapped up in stories that have no basis in truth. At least the stories we tell each other for amusement have some form of truth behind them. Anything happening in Ylisse is…not true. It's all fake." He was nearly spitting out his words as he said them, trying not to make it obvious that he was uncomfortable with what she was talking about with him. "Now let's go back to where everyone's surely waiting for us, I don't want your book-loving mind being the reason we miss out on more time with my friends."

Ophelia could have tried anything to get her father to slow down or even stop, but she was so put off by how he was reacting that she didn't dare try to argue against him further. There must have been some story he'd heard from that land that had made him feel bad, and he was taking out that personal issue on a book of stories, as well as his daughter! She merely tagged along with him, their arrival at the inn coming in silence as she was still refusing to speak with him, even though she'd closed her book and wasn't using it as a distraction.

When he asked her, politely, to take the book back up to the loft room she was using, she didn't hesitate to take the opportunity to disappear from his sight. Once she was at the door to the room, she finally broke down with a sigh, the feeling of having hurt her father overtaking her. "I just…what's so wrong with that place that makes Father so upset?" she asked herself as she opened the door, expecting to find an empty room that she could run into without anything stopping her.

"What's making him upset now?" Felicia's voice rang out, catching Ophelia by surprise. She came into the room and saw that her mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking over her shoulder to see her daughter's arrival. "Did you two end up going somewhere he disagreed with? I told him, he should have let me tag along, but he insisted I spend the day with someone cut more from the same cloth as myself."

"I think he just wanted you to have a nice afternoon without worrying about his actions," the woman sitting right next to her on the bed, who Ophelia knew as Soleil's mother, said in reply, also looking towards the girl in the doorway. "I'm sure that he caused enough trouble without needing to drag everyone else into it."

"If Odin caused trouble, I'd hope he'd have come to tell me what he'd done." Shaking her head, Felicia looked back to her companion, allowing for Ophelia to slip into the room and head up into the loft. As she was on her way up, she heard the continued speech: "But I'm sure he didn't cause any trouble, not when this might be the last time we all get together before some of you head off…"

The worry in her mother's voice didn't sit right with Ophelia, but she didn't dare question what was happening. She was only in the room to drop her book of fairy tales off and then to get back to where her father and his friends were, and that was what she was going to do. So when she got up to the loft to see Soleil laying in her bed, fast asleep, she hesitated on what to do. Since when was her friend in there, and why was she in this bed, of all places? "Er, what are you doing in here?" she questioned, setting the book with the one she'd been reading that morning before taking to shaking her friend awake. "Soleil, please, why are you in my bed right now?"

Soleil didn't stir until Ophelia had been shaking her for a minute or so, her eyes coming open slowly as if she didn't want to wake up. "I…don't recall coming into your bed like this," she quietly said before yawning, blinking her eyes rapidly to try and wake herself up a bit better. "I came up here to see the view you had of town, and then I heard Mom and your mother come into the other part of the room and I guess I just crawled into bed and took a nap. That's okay, isn't it?"

"That depends," Ophelia replied, laughing at her friend's honest answer. "You didn't rifle through my belongings and try to make something that's rightfully mine yours, did you?"

"I would never do that, Ophelia! You're too great of a friend for me to start stealing your stuff like that." Sitting up and trying to fix her brown hair from how her nap had ruffled it, Soleil took off her headband to readjust it once her hair was decently put in place. "If I did anything at all, it would have been to leave you some kind of letter, just in case things go wild in our lives, but since I don't think anything's going to change at all I didn't even bother doing that. We're going to be stuck traveling place to place forever, growing up separate and having to re-meet each other every time we gather."

Remembering what she'd heard her mother said before she came up into the loft, Ophelia nodded. "Who knows how long it will be until we see each other again after this meeting. We might both be old and gray before then, traveling on our own without parents around to guide our paths."

"Oh, don't talk like that! My parents'll always be around, as long as I'm traveling, and yours will be too! But we won't be traveling forever, and we'll be together after we're done with this!" Soleil made sure her headband was back in place before she jumped off the bed, both her feet hitting the wooden floor hard. "Here, I'll make a deal with you right now. Next time we meet up, if I hear something that makes me eat those words, I'll write you a letter telling you what I've heard. That way, you'll always know what was happening, even if I'm not there to tell you it."

"That's awfully polite of you, so thank you!" Ophelia followed her friend as she left the loft, surprising both the women in the other half of the room at the fact that there were two girls upstairs rather than one. After Soleil explained the story of how she'd ended up in there, they all went out to where the other half of the group was together, ready for a night to cap off the day spent with close friends.

By morning's light, everyone had parted ways as they always did, with the promise that another meeting like this would happen soon enough, in a distant land on a distant shore. As everyone had said their goodbyes before heading to bed for the night, Soleil had made sure to repeat her promise to Ophelia, even throwing in an offer of, "If I hear anything you'd be interested in knowing, I'll make sure to tell you out loud the moment I can!" That had been enough to make Ophelia excited for whatever meeting came next, no matter how long it would take for it to happen.

After all, she had a new book to immerse herself in for the interim.

* * *

The traveling never seemed to stop. One day it was a coastal town they were staying in, the next it was somewhere mountainous and cold—and no matter the weather they continued on their journey to see the world for what it was. This was the life Ophelia had known since she was little, and she was never one to question what was going on, even if she had more questions raising about her homeland the longer they were on their adventure. "So why is it that we've never gone back to Nohr?" she asked her parents as they came into a small town alongside a river one night at dusk. "I know that some things happened there, but were they bad enough to disallow us from returning?"

"We're not the ones banned from the country," Odin told her, while Felicia walked alongside him saying under her breath the names of the two people they knew who were: Selena and Beruka. "We just…decided it would be best to not return unless there was a dire need to do so. Your mother is positive she could be reached if something were to happen to the person she once served, and while I'm certain my former position as retainer has long since been filled, if the need arose I suppose I could go back…"

"That doesn't answer why we haven't gone back, though. That's just how we would go back. I'd like to see the place I was born someday, you know. They have the darkest stories I've read, by far." Patting the bag on her back, her book of fairy tales in the very pocket she was touching, Ophelia looked to her father with a smile, only to see his grim face in return. "Er, was something I said bothersome?"

"Not at all, my sweet." Feigning a happier expression until she turned away, Odin let out a long sigh once his daughter was back to focusing on her travel rather than him. "Returning to places we've already been isn't exactly befitting journeymen such as ourselves, and so I'd like to make it a point to never go anywhere our paths have already taken us until there's no others paths _to_ take, if you will."

In a sing-song voice, Ophelia suggested, "So like the so-called 'fictional' Ylisse, hm?"

"It doesn't exist except in stories and in imagination, which means our path will never lead there, Ophelia. Please stop bringing it up." There was nothing but irritation in Odin's voice when he responded, and it made her regret having said anything to begin with. This was a common occurrence with them whenever talk of going anywhere in particular was struck up, as she would try to mention the place painted as so interested in her book to him, in order to get him to possibly explain his disdain for the land. However, that feeling of regret would wash away by the time they arrived at their next destination, as there was always somewhere new for them to explore for a day or two before leaving once more.

He may have been perpetually annoyed with what she kept bringing up, but it was obvious that Odin had nothing but love for his daughter, even with her one-track mind. The adventures they shared on every stop of their journey, whether with or without Felicia (as she would sometimes go off to take in the sights at her own pace), greatly overwrote the aggravation the questioning caused to rise, and if there was anything that Odin wished could happen more, it would have been peaceful times like sitting on a rooftop watching a foreign sunset with his daughter, as opposed to the times where she brought up questions of places he didn't want to dwell on.

Of course, trying to avoid the topic entirely was impossible, especially when the arranged meetings with his friends happened. Six months after the previous meeting, this time in a mountainside town draped in snow, the group gathered again, and while the adults spent their time together locked in a room discussing matters deemed too mature for the girls' ears, Ophelia and Soleil got to sit out in the snow, watching flakes fall from the sky and collect on the ground in front of them. "Dad says he's thinking about taking me and Mom somewhere we've probably never heard of," Soleil mentioned as they sat there, her voice the only noise in the cold evening air. "He says that your dad's going to hate him for bringing it up to him, but he's going to do it."

"Do you know where the place is?" Cupping her cheek with a frozen hand, Ophelia watched as Soleil shrugged at the question. "Oh, well, in that case, I cannot say if my father will react well or not to it. Is it somewhere they've been before, do you think?"

"It has to be, otherwise why would there be a problem? Maybe my dad thinks yours is going to freak out because if we go, and if he and you and your mom go, that means that miss Selena and miss Beruka get left out. And if that's the case, that means we're going home." Glancing around for a second to check the area around them, Soleil leaned closer to Ophelia and added in a whisper, "I kind of hope we're going home, Dad tells me that there's bound to be so many cuties there and I just, I don't know, want to see some cuties that aren't like sisters to me?"

"Home…to Nohr. That makes sense, and I understand why Father would be upset, if that's the case. He tells me all the time that he doesn't want to go back to somewhere he's already been, and while I'm sure visiting with you would be a good reason to return, something tells me that he wouldn't be keen on it." Ophelia drummed her fingers against her cheek, the warmth of her face radiating into her icy hand with every motion.

"But what if it's not the case? Where could we be going if not home?" There wasn't an answer that Ophelia could give to Soleil's question, and so the topic faded away, them cherishing the time they had together until it was taken away at the end of the night. Her question still lingered in Ophelia's mind in the weeks to come, which led to her spending hours trying to prepare herself for whatever answer her father would give her if she happened to ask about it. The strength to ask never seemed to materialize, given how she never got around to it, and so the curiosity was left to burn within her.

Four more meetings took place over the next year, each one bringing with it more gossip on what Soleil thought her father was planning on doing, while Ophelia still had no idea how her own father felt about it. Upon the ending of the fourth meeting, the goodbyes exchanged between everyone had more power to them than they usually did, the hugs that some of the adults shared lasting a lot longer than normal. It was already later than the typical parting time when the goodbyes started, and Ophelia felt like it was drawing close to midnight when they stopped, something that she would have been okay with had she not been stuck with everyone for the duration.

"Mother, can we please head off to bed, especially if we're to be leaving before dawn?" she asked, after sneaking up right behind Felicia to not cause a scene. "I would rather not be traveling while dead tired."

"If you want to head off to sleep, we'll follow in shortly," her mother replied, looking over her shoulder to see her daughter's face excited to hear the news. "Oh, Ophelia, if only you were allowed to know why this is taking so long! You'd have wiped that smile off your face hours ago if you knew the truth!"

Her eyebrows furrowing, Ophelia leaned back as she looked at her mother with shifting eyes as she tried to make sense of what was happening. "I'm not allowed to know something?" she repeated, Felicia nodding at her slowly. "But why not? Did something bad happen?"

"I'm not allowed to tell you, as much as I think you're deserving of hearing it. If anyone's going to tell you, it'll be your father at his own pace. Now hurry off to bed, since you're so eager to do so, and we'll see you in the morning." There were more questions that Ophelia could have asked, but she chose not to, based on how reluctant to say anything her mother was. The last sight she saw before heading towards the room they were staying in was her father being held in a long embrace by his friend Selena, her face as close to his as she could get it for the longest time.

That was the image Ophelia went to sleep with in her mind, and when she woke up before her parents she spent her alone time staring at her father in his sleep, wondering what he meant by that happening. Her head was spinning with all the possibilities of what she saw meant, the top one being that someone had called for Selena to return home to face whatever she had done to get herself banished in the first place. Naturally her father would be sympathetic to something like that happening, wouldn't he? And that would explain why the goodbyes took so long, if she was going back somewhere she wasn't allowed and quite possibly staring death in the face…

"It's just going to be a long while before I see her again, and as she's one of my best friends I figured it was appropriate for the lavish farewell scene." It was the only answer Ophelia could get out of her father after they were on the road to their next stop, and no matter how hard she tried to get him to explain where she was going he refused to mention it. "Selena and Beruka are going somewhere they've chosen to go, despite warnings and discussions to the contrary. We're not going to dwell on this further, Ophelia, and I'm sorry about that."

She gave her mother a look trying to garner some sympathy to maybe make him change his stance, but Felicia merely shook her head and let the conversation die where it had been started. There was something about how her parents were keeping this secret from her that was beginning to chew at Ophelia, but she wasn't going to tell them that and cause them to become upset with her—as well as continue to not tell her anything. "Fine, Father, I understand that it must be digging deep at you to not tell your precious daughter anything, but I'll let it slide," she mumbled under her breath, reaching to her bag where her book of fairy tales was tucked away as it always was. "Just know that I can dig at you too."

For the next several trips they made, she made it a point to start reading loudly from her book whenever they had a moment of downtime. No matter how hard Odin tried to stop his daughter from her belligerent actions, she refused to stop unless he told her what he was withholding, but because he refused to do that he would back off on getting her to stop. She wasn't sure why he'd just let her read rather than tell her what she wanted to know, but in her reading she got to see how his face paled whenever she read from a Ylissean myth, him only finding peace when she stopped at the story's end.

Whatever it was that was bothering him regarding the reading had to do with one of those stories, and that was something that he'd always refused to tell her about. Now that there was the secret of what had happened with Selena to handle, she couldn't help but wonder if the two issues were somehow connected, as if she was maybe going back to the place where he'd first heard the stories he hated so much. After all, Ylisse was a place of fiction and had to exist in stories, so maybe it was something to do with someone who really loved telling those stories. That was how she jumped to the conclusion that home was where Selena had gone, and because it was back in Nohr that her father had to have heard the stories of Ylisse, that had to be the explanation for why he hated to listen and talk about it.

So the next time there was a gathering, this one missing two people like all following ones would, Ophelia let Soleil know of her findings, something the brown-haired girl was happy about. "That explains that!" she said, clasping her hands together while shooting a large, yet somewhat shaky, smile at Ophelia, who beamed back. "See, we knew that it had to be something about going home. I just hope miss Selena's okay while she's there. From what I heard about her and what she did to get banned…"

Rather than talk about anything relevant to Ophelia's interests on the matter, Soleil proceeded to spend their time together talking about the illicit encounters she'd heard about from her mother that involved Selena, Beruka, and the royal family of Nohr. It was gossip at its finest, and it was a lot of fun to be witness to, but Ophelia did wish she could have spent the time differently, especially when she saw, as the night dragged on, the tears that were starting to form in Soleil's eyes. "Is everything okay?" she finally asked, interrupting what had to have been the fifth iteration of the event involving different people. "You look like you're about to cry."

"Do I? Gods that's embarrassing." Bringing a hand up to one eye to flick tears from it, Soleil gave a soft chuckle. "I guess I should explain that I'm talking super fast here about what I heard happened because I don't want to waste a second of my time with you tonight. I want to make every moment count, because I know it'll be a long time before I can again!"

Her exclamation caught Ophelia off-guard, and she had to think for a few minutes about what she'd just heard to fully understand it, time during which Soleil had started crying and was hugging Ophelia as tightly as she could. "I…don't get it, we'll see each other again the next time our parents choose to meet up, won't we? You aren't breaking away from this life quite yet, right?"

"I'm not, but, you see, I can't tell you what's happening." Soleil's words were forced out between her sobs, and it was clear that she didn't want to have to say it. "I'm not supposed to tell you a thing other than that we're leaving and we don't know when we'll be able to see you next and—Ophelia, I don't want to let go of you!"

"Then don't let go, it's okay." Feeling herself quickly coming to the verge of tears, Ophelia closed her eyes and sighed. "Everyone's keeping these big secrets from me and I know, I just know that it's all my father's fault, he doesn't want me knowing a thing."

She could feel Soleil nodding against her shoulder, before she said, "Yeah, Dad told me I couldn't tell you because your father would have my head if he found out. Or, at least, he told me I couldn't tell you right now, so I…" She pulled herself off of Ophelia and reached into her bag of belongings she had with her, placing a tightly-folded letter into Ophelia's lap. "I wrote you a letter, exactly as I promised I would if this happened."

"What's stopping me from opening this right now and finding everything out?" she asked, eyeing the letter with curiosity. "I mean, you said you weren't permitted to tell me, but me reading it from a letter isn't a direct line of telling me anything…"

Soleil shook her head rapidly, reaching to take the letter back until Ophelia grabbed her hand and held it in her own. "You need to wait on reading it. Dad's rules, not mine. He said give it a year or so, hide it away somewhere safe, let the dust settle, and if we see each other between now and then you can just throw it away or something since it won't matter. You just…can't let your father know you read it. Ever."

"Because whatever it says inside is something he'd rather me not know, I understand." Keeping secrets from her parents wasn't something Ophelia was fond of, as she was quite the sharer when it came to news and stories, but she felt that, after reading what was in Soleil's letter, she could keep that secret close to her chest. She touched the coarse envelope of the letter, the paper rough against her fingertips, and quickly she could see tear-spots appearing on the paper next to where she was touching it. "I-I don't know if I want to have to read this," she admitted, sniffling as she turned to look at the still-crying Soleil. "It's going to hurt me more than any book ever has."

"But it's going to answer questions you've wanted answered for so long," Soleil replied, bringing a hand up to Ophelia's cheek to wipe off tears. "Like, I wish I could just say all the words you need to hear right now, but I can't! I promised I wouldn't say them and I can't have lied to my dad like that!"

There was something about how Soleil's hand was resting on her face, and about how they were both so vulnerable and emotional as they sat there together, that made Ophelia instinctively lean in towards her friend, her eyes slowly closing as she gently puckered out her lips for a stolen kiss. Noticing what was happening, and not one to push aside the opportunity, Soleil reciprocated what Ophelia was going for, their lips locking for a few seconds before they pulled away, aware of what they'd just done.

That night was the hardest round of goodbyes they could have ever experienced, knowing that there was something _more_ than just friendship between them that was being separated by whatever journey Soleil and her parents were going on. Feeling obligated to at least say goodbye to her friend's parents, Ophelia made sure to hug them both once or twice throughout the farewells, but she spent most of the time attached to Soleil, never wanting to let go of her. Eventually, though, the time came for them to head out for the night, and that put a final, permanent end on the hugging.

Ophelia didn't speak to her parents about it for days, which was more than acceptable because it seemed neither of her parents wanted to talk about it either. They didn't leave from that town for over a week, due to no one communicating with each other simply because of how hard that parting had hit them.

It was only a year until Ophelia could read that letter and understand why this had happened how it did, and she was going to count down to the moment when she could read her friend's true parting words for her.

* * *

That year dragged on and on, the excitement of meeting up with friends completely gone because there were no longer people who wanted to meet with the family. They were heading to new locations every few weeks, exploring all they could, and then leaving without a second thought as to what they were doing. Never were their destinations questioned anymore, as Ophelia had long since given up on trying to prod her father into making any decisions at her curiosity. He'd taken that departure a lot harder than she would have figured, and even months later she was hesitant to mention anything that would upset him in case he was still emotionally struggling with losing his friends to their own journeys.

That meant, however, that she didn't need to worry about accidentally mentioning her letter to him, because she'd tucked it into the book of fairy tales and she wasn't going to mention that book to him either. He was already angered enough when she mentioned the book, now that he was distant with his emotions he might go further than he ever had in expressing his displeasure with the thing. So to play everything safe, Ophelia kept all thoughts relating to her book and the letter within it to herself, just waiting for the day that she could open it up and learn everything for herself.

The day that she had in mind as a rough one-year anniversary of its delivery came in conjunction with their arrival at an island outpost far off the coast of a foreign land where the natives hadn't known a thing about the region the family hailed from. She had found it humorous to watch her parents try to barter night's stays in places when they couldn't use their former ties to the royal house of Nohr as leverage, even if it meant they were sleeping in less-than-ideal locations. The island outpost, they were told, would be much more suitable to travelers such as themselves, and upon arrival they were treated more fairly than they had been in previous weeks.

This meant that they were given a lovely two-bed room with a view of the wide open sea, somewhere they could stay for as long as needed. It was growing dark when they got in, but after settling into their room Ophelia excused herself under the guise of "exploring the town", something her parents weren't going to question. Her fairy tale book in hand, she left their watchful eyes and found herself walking towards the beach, locals waving at her as she passed because they were thankful for any kind of visitors to their island. When she found a quiet spot just off the sand, right near a storage for small watercraft, she nestled herself against the rocky stairs and cracked open her book, Soleil's letter falling out.

"It's about time I read you," she told herself as she exchanged the book for the letter, carefully opening it and immediately being hit by the familiar scent of her friend that overpowered even the salty sea air. That alone was enough to make Ophelia want to cry, but she knew that the words the letter contained would seal the deal.

 _Darling Ophelia, how much I love and miss you already!_ the letter opened, Soleil's squiggly handwriting a pain to read yet so comforting to Ophelia's eyes. _By the time you're reading this, I've been long gone but hopefully not dead or anything, but Dad isn't sure if we're going to actually make it to where we're aiming to go. That's because, get this, that Ylisse place your book talks about? It's real, and that's where we're going!_

Ophelia's eyes widened at the revelation, before they narrowed as she gave a loud sigh. "Of course it's a real place, and naturally that would be why Father despised me speaking of going there, if there's a chance arriving there will result in death…" Still, she read on, curious if Soleil had written anything else that would explain actions of her father. The next few passages in the letter were entirely about how much she was going to miss her "darling Ophelia", as she was referred to several more times outside the opening, and it even made reference to the possibility of them having kissed before the letter was read. _Since me leaving's what made this letter be written, I sure hope that I got to kiss you at least once before I went. So if we did kiss and you're reading this, know that I'd wanted to do that for the longest time. If we hadn't kissed, know that next time I see your pretty face you are getting (at least) one kiss from me._

The line made Ophelia start blushing, despite still being teary-eyed and ready to go pick a fight with her father at the same time. "I wonder if this means she'll kiss me again next time we see each other," she mused, continuing on with reading. _This is really hard to write to you, because Dad keeps mentioning that going to Ylisse might not work and we might die or get lost or something, and I don't want to go if it means never seeing you again. But right now, even if I don't die, I bet I won't see you again if your dad keeps being upset about the idea of going. Which is why, when you read this, I want you to try to get here yourself. Try convincing your dad to let you all come, and if he doesn't budge, just come on your own! Here, let me tell you exactly what Dad's saying is the way to do it._

The letter finished off with Soleil's rough explanation of how, in her father's words, to get to Ylisse, a complicated process that didn't make much sense to Ophelia but she wasn't going to question it. It was a way to get back to her friend's side and to go somewhere she'd desperately wanted to go, but at the cost of potentially leaving her parents behind. She sat there to dwell on this information for quite some time, until the shining stars overhead were the only light source she had in the night. By the time she returned to the place her parents were staying, they were already in bed, but were still awake making sure that she returned safely. Without a word to them, she climbed into her own bed, hiding her letter and her book under her pillow before she fell asleep.

When morning came, she was last to rise in the family, something that rarely ever happened. "Do you mind explaining why you were out so late last night?" Felicia asked, sitting at the edge of her daughter's bed, brushing out her hair. "Your father and I were both worried, and we don't know our way around this town so we wouldn't have known where to even start looking for you!"

"I was just reading on the beach," Ophelia replied, not even having to lie about what it was she was doing. "It's quite lovely out there, if you and Father ever get the chance to take a nighttime stroll along the water. Lots of local couples seemed to be doing it."

"Maybe we will, but next time you plan on going out like that, make sure to tell us where it is you're going! I had to drag your father into bed to keep him from trying to hunt you down, he doesn't need to lose you like he's lost his friends." Felicia's eyes widened as she softly gasped at what she'd said, Ophelia sitting up in her bed to look at her mother suspiciously. "I mean, I didn't say anything of that sort! Come now, sweetie, we should really get you up and ready for the day…"

The suspicion not waning slightly, Ophelia did as was expected of her, getting dressed at record speed and following her mother out of the room, joining Odin as he paced around the entrance area to the inn they were staying at, a collection of flyers for different local events in his hands. "It's about time you two join me for this day of adventure," he greeted them, seemingly not as bothered by his daughter's late night out as she assumed he would have been. "There are so many sights to be seen, so many places to explore, it's got me super excited and ready to begin! So, shall we go?"

"I think we shall," Felicia answered, looking at Ophelia with a smile, an expression that was wordlessly pleading with the girl to not say anything about what she'd said in the bedroom. As she thought about it, Ophelia decided that it wasn't worth starting a fight when her parents had big expectations for the day, so she smiled back, her mother visibly looking relaxed at the returned gesture.

"Then what are we waiting for? Onward to whatever this day holds for us, my loves!" Unaware of the exchange going on between his wife and daughter, Odin was quick to get them moving onto looking at whatever he'd planned for them, which was a lot of little stops of "interest" to the people of the island. Nothing was incredibly interesting to them, having already seen so many different things across the world, but it was still a nice way to spend a first real day in a place.

When night started to fall and the sun set over the ocean, Ophelia nudged her parents in the direction of going on the late-night beach stroll she'd suggested to her mother. "It'll be a nice way for you two to wind down, and it gives me some time to do some reading," she told them, raising up a little book she'd purchased after much begging. "It'll simply be the most perfect night possible!"

"I suppose we can do that," Odin said, looking at Felicia who was nodding in agreement. "It is a bit odd that you don't want any part of this, but you are growing up and don't always need your dear parents around." He gave a fake sniffle, before tackling his daughter in a large hug. "Stop growing up, I beg you! I'll find a way to curse you to be forever young, I just don't want my child growing up like she is!"

Ophelia was taken aback by her father's behavior, but what came to mind with him asking her to not grow up wasn't any sort of adoration of his love—it was a memory of Soleil, and how she would always chide her for growing up without her. "I…I'll try not to grow up too much more," she meekly replied, letting his hug linger for as long as he wanted it to. "I'll forever be your little girl, Father, no matter what."

"That's what I like to hear!" He let go of her, before giving her a kiss on the cheek and turning her in the direction of where they were staying. "Now go on and do what you'd like, we'll see you when we're done on the beach!"

She waved them farewell as they started their walk, not even watching as they walked because her mind had drifted elsewhere. Yes, her father loved her and wanted what was best for her, but his mindset of "best" was to keep her with him forever, and that wasn't what she thought was best for herself. She wasn't going to get answers with her parents, she knew this was the truth, and now she had a rough estimate of how one was supposed to find their way to Ylisse, where she could rejoin Soleil and her family and feel like she was where she needed to be.

She glanced at the cover of the book she'd gotten, a book explaining the basics of sailing on one's own, and she smiled, her heart starting to find peace in what she was planning on doing. All she needed to do was research what she needed to do, then set sail for the mainland and begin following the steps in Soleil's letter, and eventually she'd fall into the land of Ylisse. It was fool-proof, and she knew it.

But, before she could put her plan into action, she needed to douse any suspicion her parents might start to build in regards to what she was doing. That meant going back to the inn and curling up with her book in bed, all of her belongings packed up in her bag at the foot of the bed, tucking the sailing book under her pillow and pretending to sleep when her parents returned to the room. The pretending soon turned into a real slumber, which allowed for her to wake up just before dawn, the soft sounds of her parents both fast asleep giving her hope on what she was about to do. After packing her sailing book in with the rest of her things, Ophelia looked at her parents and how they were cuddled up together in their sleep, sighing when she saw how unaware they both looked.

"Perhaps this is what you deserve for keeping me in the dark for so long," she whispered as she headed towards the door, her voice shaking even at its quiet volume. "If only you had answered me when I asked things, or stopped lying to me years ago, maybe then there would have been a proper farewell."

As she opened the door to the room, keeping it nearly silent, she added, "I hope when we meet again in Ylisse, you will forgive me for leaving you like I did." And with that, she slipped out of the room and left the inn, the pale light of the budding sunrise leading her path towards the boats by the water's edge, her feet carrying her on to her first solo adventure, to be reunited with people who she desperately missed.

* * *

When the sun was shining into the room through one of the windows, a bright sunbeam struck the bed, hitting Odin directly in the face. "Guess it's time for another day of adventure," he groaned as he woke himself up, mentally preparing the day's exploration schedule. After shaking Felicia awake, he did as he always did and left the room without doing anything else, knowing that his wife would handle waking Ophelia and getting her ready for the day.

So when Felicia left the room alone and in a panic, he knew something was wrong. "She's gone, her things are all gone, and what's worse," Felicia stammered, holding out a carefully-folded letter, "I found this on the floor. It's to Ophelia, from Soleil, and mentions _where_ her and her family went off to! Odin, I think she…she might have…"

He snatched the letter from her hand and read it for himself, looking horrified as he went through both the romantic fluff as well as the directions to Ylisse. "She should know better, she's been taught it's not a real place and I didn't want her knowing it was real until we were ready to go there!" Wracking his mind for any ideas of where she could have gone off to, given the clues in the letter, he shook his head and suggested, "Maybe we should go check that bookshop we found yesterday, knowing her she's on a mission to prove the words of this letter correct and, therefore, prove me wrong!"

When they set out for the shop, little did they know that by turning the other direction and heading towards the beach, they would have found their daughter much quicker. But they didn't think much of the rushing of the islanders towards the shoreline, where a body laden with a bag of books and clothing had washed up on the shore, the locals trying to pull the pink hair away from the girl's face to try and make any sense of who she was.

* * *

 **A/N: Title inspired by Moana. As is the very rough plot. And of course, death inspired by the character's obvious namesake.**

 **Okay, but seriously I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope anyone who's read it had fun too. I love the idea of the Fates kids being born post-canon, so there's no baby realms, and obviously the Awakening trio has to become travelers of some sort because they're _already_ adventuring travelers in canon. **


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